Does ZOS even care about the bot infestation?

Vilhjálmur

I farm in Bal Foyen every week, I've been dealing with bots ever since I started farming in the zone for a year, I know this isn't anything new, but it's getting too much for me, I make sure to report them everytime and the people that farm in the same spot report them aswell and they're never banned, I see 4 bots in the same spot at times and it's not just Bal Foyen, pretty much any zone where people go to farm mats there's always bots and it takes weeks or even months for these bots to get banned, just to come back a week later

ZOS hasn't done anything to combat this bot infestation and it's really making it hard for some of us that make gold off mats because of all the bots stealing them, simply banning them doesn't work (and that's something ZOS is too incompetent to do unless enough people report the bots), they need to implement a system that deals with bots properly but they probably don't care enough to do that

Zweible

Nope.. They don't care. Report all you want. The reports are ignored. They will send you an email for each report (generated by a BOT..) and probably will never be seen by an actual person.

Vilhjálmur

Zweible wrote: »

Nope.. They don't care. Report all you want. The reports are ignored. They will send you an email for each report (generated by a BOT..) and probably will never be seen by an actual person.

I know, I just hope the community wakes up and complaint more about this because this is a serious issue *** up with a lot of people and it's baffling that ZOS is too busy releasing crown store garbage instead of fixing their game

IndianaJames7

No, there are much more important things that devs can spend their time on then banning bots that someone can just create more of the next day.

It would be nice if they implemented an antibot software that auto banned them, but frankly performance/ server issues are all that many players care about right now.

Kurat

Bots are good for consumers. I get cheaper mats.

Zweible

Kurat wrote: »

Bots are good for consumers. I get cheaper mats.

So its OK if others cheat as long as you profit from it.... pitiful attitude.

Mr_Walker

Kurat wrote: »

Bots are good for consumers. I get cheaper mats.

Congratulations. Welcome to the generation of the morally bereft. You should consider a career in banking.

dem0n1k

Even bot accounts have to buy an account from ZOS. So ZOS care very much about bot accounts.

MartiniDaniels

ZOS fights with bots in a similar way like governments fight with crime syndicates - trying to find balance between income/kickbacks and population unhappiness.
So bots will go nowhere. They will be banned after they payed off for their owners and then those owners will create new bots with new accounts. Overall everybody wins with exception of mat farmers. But given that game is not very grindy and gold doesn't give you any combat advantage... i guess this is very low priority issue.

P.S. i screenshot and report bots wherever I occasionally find them, never received any feedback on their ban.

nafensoriel

No MMO eliminates bots and bot companies are extremely efficient at replacing banned bots.
It's generally accepted that you will never prevent bots so you instead work to minimize them.

The regular ban cycles keep them in check for ESO. If you think otherwise I invite you to try any Chinese MMO and see what real bot related inflation is.

ForzaRammer

nope

Marto

Banning boys is a tricky thing.

The people that design bot programs are constantly trying to find loopholes and blindspots to avoid automated systems.

If ZOS created and ran a code to automatically detect and ban bots, it would take just a week for the bot creators to analyze what happened, reverse engineer it, and create a new type of bot that Is inmune to it.

That's why ZOS asks you to report their usernames. Because the only way to prevent such a thing, is for w human to *manually* ban them, one by one.

BooPerScOOper

Marto wrote: »

Banning boys is a tricky thing.
.

eeeehhhh What?

Haenk

dem0n1k wrote: »

Even bot accounts have to buy an account from ZOS. So ZOS care very much about bot accounts.

It is very likely that the throw-away bot-accounts are paid with stolen credit card data.

Grimm13

Marto wrote: »

Banning boys is a tricky thing.

The people that design bot programs are constantly trying to find loopholes and blindspots to avoid automated systems.

If ZOS created and ran a code to automatically detect and ban bots, it would take just a week for the bot creators to analyze what happened, reverse engineer it, and create a new type of bot that Is inmune to it.

That's why ZOS asks you to report their usernames. Because the only way to prevent such a thing, is for w human to *manually* ban them, one by one.

Yet the tools they give you are inadequate for the task. Takes using an addon to make it a possibility to do without giving up on the process. I am a PC user, hate to think how much worse it is on a console.

I agree that it takes a human presence to do the job properly. This is a sorely missing resource that has not been allocated. In addition ZOS needs to look at the addons to see how it's done better and make changes to their system to make the it available on all platforms.

Edit: Before some.... one says but the Devs have better things to do than police the bots. It's not their job, that's a Game Moderator's job. Hire them, give them work hours, make their presence known.

redlink1979

dem0n1k wrote: »

Even bot accounts have to buy an account from ZOS. So ZOS care very much about bot accounts.

Totally agree. Don't forget this.

Alienoutlaw

I've mentioned this before on similar threads the Solution to the "bots" is a very simple one in theory (not sure how easy to implement)
1) have the nodes on a random spawn script so they are never in the same place twice at any given time (even if it by a meter either way) this will serve to disrupt the scripted bots path and force a human to interact.
2) have a multi key press system to actually farm the node (similar but not as complex as the lock pick) and have this on a random interval timer again forcing HUMAN interaction.
if done correctly the random location tied with random key press system would ensure a bot could not be programmed to farm set routes and automatically collect nodes.
just an idea

Crucified4sin

Those are just zos employees, paid to make our lives miserable 🤣

FierceSam

Two words

Money

Laundering

Donny_Vito

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

I've mentioned this before on similar threads the Solution to the "bots" is a very simple one in theory (not sure how easy to implement)
1) have the nodes on a random spawn script so they are never in the same place twice at any given time (even if it by a meter either way) this will serve to disrupt the scripted bots path and force a human to interact.
2) have a multi key press system to actually farm the node (similar but not as complex as the lock pick) and have this on a random interval timer again forcing HUMAN interaction.
if done correctly the random location tied with random key press system would ensure a bot could not be programmed to farm set routes and automatically collect nodes.
just an idea

I see where you are going with this, but at what cost to the actual players who are playing? Farming mats, as an active player, should not feel like that much of a chore to do.

Alienoutlaw

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

I've mentioned this before on similar threads the Solution to the "bots" is a very simple one in theory (not sure how easy to implement)
1) have the nodes on a random spawn script so they are never in the same place twice at any given time (even if it by a meter either way) this will serve to disrupt the scripted bots path and force a human to interact.
2) have a multi key press system to actually farm the node (similar but not as complex as the lock pick) and have this on a random interval timer again forcing HUMAN interaction.
if done correctly the random location tied with random key press system would ensure a bot could not be programmed to farm set routes and automatically collect nodes.
just an idea

I see where you are going with this, but at what cost to the actual players who are playing? Farming mats, as an active player, should not feel like that much of a chore to do.

if done right it should not impact to much i think, but rather have a minor inconvenience than bots any day

Grimm13

Crucified4sin wrote: »

Those are just zos employees, paid to make our lives miserable 🤣

or are they farming to crowd source their paychecks? You decide.

gatekeeper13

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

SeaGtGruff

I wonder how many "bot sightings" are actually legitimate players mistaken for bots.

On the other hand, I feel certain that bots do exist, and I wonder just how many bot accounts are logged in at any given time, and whether there's any way they might be impacting server performance (server load) for everyone else?

Alienoutlaw

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

usually more than one character all running as if glued together or standing at a spawn sight (bears/wolfs) constantly heavy attacking, usually sorc's with pets, they have totally random names and are always low level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNtSJoST07o

red_emu

Grimm13 wrote: »

Crucified4sin wrote: »

Those are just zos employees, paid to make our lives miserable 🤣

or are they farming to crowd source their paychecks? You decide.

They are farming more of that Valid Internet Connection I believe?

GreenhaloX

ZOS don't have the manpower. There are too many. Bots are all around like Army ants. I'm just scratching my head on why..? Some people just don't better things to do, it seem.

Donny_Vito

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

usually more than one character all running as if glued together or standing at a spawn sight (bears/wolfs) constantly heavy attacking, usually sorc's with pets, they have totally random names and are always low level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNtSJoST07o

I think he was asking more of a rhetorical question. But your answer has a lot of assumptions in it, nothing concrete. Aside from some anti-bot software that tracks keystrokes, patterns, etc... you are basically just assuming someone is a bot because they are standing still at one node. I'm done this while I've been coding at home, and just farm a node when I'd look up at my game and see it's there (was also on my Sorc )

ApostateHobo

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

usually more than one character all running as if glued together or standing at a spawn sight (bears/wolfs) constantly heavy attacking, usually sorc's with pets, they have totally random names and are always low level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNtSJoST07o

That's one type. There's also the ore farmers that run from node to node on a scripted path checking their map at regular intervals. They're all sorcs with keyboard smash names, and on ps4 extremely random psn names. All the ones I've encountered are also chinese if that counts for anything lol

Alienoutlaw

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

usually more than one character all running as if glued together or standing at a spawn sight (bears/wolfs) constantly heavy attacking, usually sorc's with pets, they have totally random names and are always low level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNtSJoST07o

I think he was asking more of a rhetorical question. But your answer has a lot of assumptions in it, nothing concrete. Aside from some anti-bot software that tracks keystrokes, patterns, etc... you are basically just assuming someone is a bot because they are standing still at one node. I'm done this while I've been coding at home, and just farm a node when I'd look up at my game and see it's there (was also on my Sorc )

i've seen this type of bot for myself when you have 6 toons running and changing direction like a flock of birds its kid of a big give away lol but i understand what your saying

Donny_Vito

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

Donny_Vito wrote: »

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

How do you spot a bot when farming, for example? Really interested to learn how.

usually more than one character all running as if glued together or standing at a spawn sight (bears/wolfs) constantly heavy attacking, usually sorc's with pets, they have totally random names and are always low level
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNtSJoST07o

I think he was asking more of a rhetorical question. But your answer has a lot of assumptions in it, nothing concrete. Aside from some anti-bot software that tracks keystrokes, patterns, etc... you are basically just assuming someone is a bot because they are standing still at one node. I'm done this while I've been coding at home, and just farm a node when I'd look up at my game and see it's there (was also on my Sorc )

i've seen this type of bot for myself when you have 6 toons running and changing direction like a flock of birds its kid of a big give away lol but i understand what your saying

Trust me, I've seen them too. I know in my mind they are a bunch of bots, but I think ZoS is more worried about accidentally banning a real player than banning a bot.